I'm just wondering because as I've heard, 2/3rds of the worlds oil reserves are locked in what is called tar sands and Canada and Mexico has shitloads of this.
The price of oil per barrel for this is estimated at $12 a barrel(in 1997, they hope to get it down to $6), it wasn't considered profitable back them but now with oil prices at 50USD a barrel it seems like Canada should start building a really huge ass oil infrastructure and flood the world market with cheap oil and start producing some oil sheiks of its own.
Oil shale. This is minable in Colorado and amounts to more than the Saudi reserves. Some years ago it was estimated as profitable at $35 per barrel. Oil cost just under $20 per barrel now when the first draft of this article was written in 1995. Now (1999 March) it is $12 per barrel. Now (2000 December) it is $28 per barrel. Chevron developed the shale process in the 1970s, but decided it wasn't profitable then. 2002 note: Shell is doing exploratory work in colorado on new processes for getting oil from shale economically.
Not as profitable but still better than current prices and it seems the USA has a real huge load of this too.
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I seem to remember that Carter wanted to exploit this shale oil, because I believe the USA has more of it than Canada. Reagen apparently shut down the program. It was in some Time article about how companies are getting tax breaks for alternative fuels when the only criteria was chemically altering it. They were spraying crap on regular coal, selling it for higher prices, polluting just as much, and getting tax breaks.
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The price of labour has always been a contributing factor to why the US has gone overseas for its oil. However, with the increase in world oil prices, it may be more economical for the US to look more domestically now to serve its unquenchable thirst for oil.
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I don't know whether it's profitable or economical yet, but the second that it is I expect Canada's oil sands to be drilled faster than......(will fill in sexual analogy some other time).....
Tar Sands are not terribly economically viable for mass extraction.
The process of refining it, which includes melting the tar, in situ where most of it is located, in Alberta, would require so much water to be heated that the local farming economy would be unable to function as it is now.
It's a heavier oil, which means that far more work has to be done to pump it around or ship it by freight.
It's a negative energy economy. You need to put more energy in (which would most likely be in the form of gas generation for electricity) than you get out in usable oil.
Vendetta wrote:It's a negative energy economy. You need to put more energy in (which would most likely be in the form of gas generation for electricity) than you get out in usable oil.
The price for making the oil from this comes to $12 a barrel.
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who did not.
His Divine Shadow wrote:
Not as profitable but still better than current prices and it seems the USA has a real huge load of this too.
US shale oil reserves have been estimated to be as much as four times all the oil ever found in Saudi Territory, much of which has already been extracted. Some of the stuff is simply too deep for open pit mining though (and new open pit mines are so popular with the environmentalists) and I doubt tunnel mining would be economical. A project to actually begin mining the stuff was launched in the 1980's, but it fell apart after a few years because of all the of the fluxuations of oil prices and the withdraw of US goverment support.
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Vendetta wrote:It's a negative energy economy. You need to put more energy in (which would most likely be in the form of gas generation for electricity) than you get out in usable oil.
The price for making the oil from this comes to $12 a barrel.
Is that the price before or after it is separated from the sand?
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Vendetta wrote:It's a negative energy economy. You need to put more energy in (which would most likely be in the form of gas generation for electricity) than you get out in usable oil.
The price for making the oil from this comes to $12 a barrel.
Is that the price before or after it is separated from the sand?
After the oil has been treated and "barreled" ofcourse, the costs of extraction and refinement are counted in this price, hence it's no longer uneconomical.
The water factor might be a problem though but not all refining needs to be done on-site I guess.
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who did not.
I personally oppose Canada being the new Saudi Arabia ... you only get to see hot Canadian babes wearing skimpy clothing during the 3 warm weeks of weather they get as it is now .... you want them in burkhas year-round???
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His Divine Shadow wrote:
The price for making the oil from this comes to $12 a barrel.
Is that the price before or after it is separated from the sand?
After the oil has been treated and "barreled" of course, the costs of extraction and refinement are counted in this price, hence it's no longer uneconomical.
The water factor might be a problem though but not all refining needs to be done on-site I guess.
Kind of strange the difference between that and drilling for it,one process needs to split the oil from the sand,the other the get it with having sands in which i wonder shouldn't it be cheaper?
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Montcalm wrote:Kind of strange the difference between that and drilling for it,one process needs to split the oil from the sand,the other the get it with having sands in which i wonder shouldn't it be cheaper?
I'm sorry but the coherency is breaking down around the bolded parts, could you please rewrite this, I am not sure I follow you.
I'm thinking you are saying the price of conventional oil should be cheaper? Well I think thats alot todo with demand being so high on the current infrastructure, this whole oil running out thing is scaring alot of people too, however I think alot of pressure could be removed if these reserves where tapped.
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who did not.
Montcalm wrote:Kind of strange the difference between that and drilling for it,one process needs to split the oil from the sand,the other they get it without having sands in which i wonder shouldn't it be cheaper?
I'm sorry but the coherency is breaking down around the bolded parts, could you please rewrite this, I am not sure I follow you.
I'm thinking you are saying the price of conventional oil should be cheaper? Well I think thats alot todo with demand being so high on the current infrastructure, this whole oil running out thing is scaring alot of people too, however I think alot of pressure could be removed if these reserves where tapped.
Oops typo error
anyway you got it.
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Vendetta wrote:It's a negative energy economy. You need to put more energy in (which would most likely be in the form of gas generation for electricity) than you get out in usable oil.
Er, that would make sense if the energy was produced by recombining the oil with whatever crap it's blended with. This is not like fuel cells.
Wouldn't it help if we had more refineries? From what I understand from the business reports form the radio that even though OPEC have agreed to a long term increase in oil production the prices aren't really going to drop unless we have refining capability do refine all that oil. Increase production + more refineries = cheap oil. Remove one and the price of oil would not change much.
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Chmee wrote:I personally oppose Canada being the new Saudi Arabia ... you only get to see hot Canadian babes wearing skimpy clothing during the 3 warm weeks of weather they get as it is now .... you want them in burkhas year-round???
I don't know about you, but i've already started seeing girls wear skimpy clothing, at it's nowheres near as warm here as it is on the west coast. But yeah, the burkhas would be a real downer...
My brother and sister-in-law: "Do you know where milk comes from?"
My niece: "Yeah, from the fridge!"
Actually, I recall a geography class I had to take about a year ago and I recall the teacher droning on and on about how oil shale would cost about 2 bucks a gallon (no per barrel figure, sorry).
That NOS Guy wrote:Actually, I recall a geography class I had to take about a year ago and I recall the teacher droning on and on about how oil shale would cost about 2 bucks a gallon (no per barrel figure, sorry).
That's starting to look mighty good around now.
I'd have to think that is the consumer price because that would be about $84 a barrel. Now I have no idea what Texas Crude is running right now, but I'm sure it's significantly lower than that.
My brother and sister-in-law: "Do you know where milk comes from?"
My niece: "Yeah, from the fridge!"
I'm thinking you are saying the price of conventional oil should be cheaper? Well I think thats alot todo with demand being so high on the current infrastructure, this whole oil running out thing is scaring alot of people too, however I think alot of pressure could be removed if these reserves where tapped.
There's that whole OPEC cartel thing, too--they'd probably invite Canada.
Then the U.S. would have to invade Canada, and it'd be a big mess...
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